Perchance to Dream
by dyingimmortal
Summary: AU: "Petra Ral, nineteen, hit by a car and smashed into a tree at 12:47 AM on April 4th; shattered her left hip and parts of her spine, also cracked her head pretty hard. We don't know if she'll wake up, Dr. Levi." Rivetra.


"Petra Ral, nineteen, hit by a car and smashed into a tree at 12:47 AM on April 4th; shattered her left hip and parts of her spine, also cracked her head pretty hard. We don't know if she'll wake up, Dr. Levi."

Levi watches as the gurney is rushed past, the doctors' shoes clicking in a frantic staccato rhythm on the marble floor. He gets only the faintest glimpse of the motionless body on the stretcher, but he sees a bright spot of color, a shock of hair against ash-pale skin and poppy-red blood.

"They're taking her in for surgery now," Dr. Zoe says, pushing her glasses up her nose. "They should be able to fix up the physical damage, but considering the way her spine cracked against that tree and the fact that she hit her head hard as well, we don't know how her nervous system, her brain will be affected. Not to mention she was left for nearly an hour before someone found her."

"It's two in the morning," Levi says, frowning, "and the accident happened over an hour ago? Did no one see it?"

"It was caught on tape," Zoe says, "and a bank security guard checked the tapes only twenty minutes ago. It was a hit-and-run driver."

"The way she was hit seems like there should be some damage to the car too."

"There was a little, but the car drove off afterwards. They're trying to identify the license plate, but it was pretty dark. The car was swerving around before it hit her; the driver was probably drunk."

"Are the police dealing with this?"

Zoe twists her mouth in consternation. "Trying to. You know how useless Chief Pixis and his officers can be when they've been drinking. They've contacted her father about the accident; he lives out of town. She goes to a college nearby."

"And if she lives through the surgery?"

"Then she'll be under your supervision, doctor."

Levi turns in the direction the gurney was wheeled, scowling because it's two in the morning, his shift just started, and he's sick of assholes who don't take responsibility for their actions. _Petra Ral_, that's the girl's name, he thinks, remembering the bright hair and bright blood; and for a moment the strangest thought flits through his mind that she's been injured the same way again.

* * *

He dreams of her.

He didn't get a good look at her face, but somehow he knows it's her, that the crumpled body on the stretcher and the pale outline of a girl on the horizon are the same person. The sun is setting, streaking orange and gold through her hair, and he can't see her face, but he knows she's smiling and that her eyes are closed.

She turns, and he still can't see her face, the setting sun is still too bright in his eyes, but he sees the way she falters, the way she cocks her head as if puzzled by his presence, and then she is stepping towards him, and he can make out her eyes, a bright golden-brown color (_bright_, he thinks, _everything about her is bright_), and they are wide and filled with wonder as she reaches one hand out to him, fingertips trembling, pale pink lips parting to form a word—

He wakes up.

* * *

He has no idea what color her eyes really are, if his subconscious mind was correct in its speculation, because they are closed. She lies on a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, her skin nearly the same color as the bedsheets.

The surgery went well; she just hasn't woken up yet. Levi checks her heart rate monitor; it is steady. He shines a light into her eyes to check if her pupils are dilating; they are not. (Her eyes _are_ amber-colored; lucky guess, he thinks.)

He fills in the chart tacked to the edge of her bed and signs his name, then leaves the room and heads downstairs. It is nearly time for his "lunch break" (at four in the afternoon). There is a bit of commotion at the reception desk: a tall young man with sandy hair and a distraught face is arguing with the nurse there.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Bossard," Nanaba is saying, in a tone that indicates this is not her first time repeating it, "but those are the regulations. You can't visit unless you're family or with someone who is related to the patient."

"But I _have_ to see her!" the young man shouts, in a tone that indicates this is also not his first time saying it. "You don't understand; she's been hurt and if she's _right there_ I should be able to see her! I've known her for so long we're practically family and—" He gulps on his last words, his jaw working like he's fighting back tears.

Nanaba says more gently, "I know it must be hard for you, but please understand, regulations are regulations. Once a relative of the patient gets here, you will be able to visit."

The young man doesn't say anything, just clenches his fists and blinks rapidly. Nanaba asks in a softer tone, "Is she your girlfriend?"

He snorts, though his face is still tense. "Petra's not my girlfriend," he mumbles, but the way he averts his eyes seems to be a sign that he wishes he were.

_Petra_. It dawns on Levi that they're talking about the patient he was just checking on. At that moment, Nanaba sees him, and waves him over.

"Dr. Levi, how is Miss Ral?"

"She's stable," Levi says shortly, eyeing "Mr. Bossard." He'd never admit it, and people often say his personality more than makes up for his lack of height, but he hates standing next to people taller than him. Pity it's inevitable.

"Are you one of the doctors in charge of her?" the young man demands, standing up straighter. As if he weren't towering over Levi already.

"Yes."

"Please." He swallows thickly and unclenches his fists, then clenches them again. "Do whatever you can to save her life. She's—she's young, and she doesn't deserve to die."

_Most people don't,_ Levi thinks, _and the ones who do deserve to die usually get away._ The hit-and-run driver responsible for Miss Ral's condition comes to mind and an inexplicable surge of anger rises in his chest.

He must not have said anything for too long, because Mr. Bossard stares harder at him and says in a strangled voice, "Please. Try as hard as you can to keep her alive."

Levi gets requests like this all the time; there have been countless mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, friends, cousins who have all begged him for the same thing. It's not that he doesn't care, but as an emergency physician, he has seen many people who could only cling on to life for so long, and there have been so many requests that the weight of their words has long ceased to bother him. He always tries his best, but he never makes any promises.

So he doesn't know why his heart constricts in his chest, why he finds himself affected by the young man's grief, why his mouth opens seemingly of its own accord and says, "I'll try my best."

"Thank you," Mr. Bossard whispers, and Levi tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut that tells him nothing good will come of this.

* * *

He dreams of her again.

He's never seen his patients in his dreams before, but there she is once more, standing in a grassy field, the setting sun streaming through strands of her copper hair. Undamaged and wearing a gauzy dress of pale blue, she's lovely, surrounded by waving stalks of grass and golden daffodils.

He watches as she picks a flower and smells it, then closes her eyes and sighs happily. Something itches in the back of his brain but he ignores it, content to just stand still and wonder why she is here, in his mind when he sleeps.

She turns and sees him, and her smile fades. She drops the flower and takes a hesitant step towards him, her eyes gleaming with curiosity.

He lets her approach slowly, and the details of her face come into view. Her skin looks soft and healthy; it glows with life. Her eyes and hair are even brighter up close, and there is a gentle curve to her lips that in real life are stuck in a slant of distress.

"Do I… know you?" she asks, and her voice is fragile like moth's wings in the breeze.

"No," Levi answers honestly. His brow furrows as he realizes he's perturbed by his answer; it doesn't feel right, though he has no idea why.

"Really?" She studies him, eyes traveling from the top of his head to his perfectly shined shoes. "You feel so familiar."

"I'm the doctor in charge of you. You're in a coma."

"A… coma?" she repeats, like she can't quite grasp the meaning of the words. "That can't be right. Last thing I remember I was just walking back to campus…"

"You were hit by a drunk driver," he informs her. Perhaps he is too brusque, but he's never been good at giving bad news in a way that softens the harshness of the words. "Around one in the morning. Someone found you about an hour later and called the hospital and the police. You had surgery and the physical damage to your body has been repaired, but you haven't woken up yet and you're still in the ER. You were hit in the head as well as the hip and spine."

She looks at him blankly like she can't comprehend what he's saying. "I was… hit by a car?"

"Yes."

She bites her lower lip, looking troubled. "That's so strange. I don't remember that at all."

"Likely you were unconscious," Levi says, and mentally smacks himself for being sarcastic. He's always been antisocial, preferring his books and papers to people, but even he knows it's bad taste to make such comments about car accidents, especially to the victims of said accidents.

Even if it is only in his dreams.

She doesn't look annoyed, though; she merely shrugs. "I don't feel any pain though…" She glances around, at the rolling hills of grass and the blue sky tinged with pink and gold by the rays of the setting sun. "It's like I've been here for a long time already."

He stares at her, and something teases at the edge of his consciousness, whispering of long days and long nights and giant forests and tall trees—does he know her from somewhere? He suddenly feels like he should recognize her face—

—but then he wakes up.

* * *

When he passes by the reception desk on his way to a late lunch the next day, there is another group of people there arguing with Nanaba, and Levi instinctively knows they're there to see Petra Ral. (How he knows, he's not sure, because he did a dozen other checkups that morning, but he _knows_.)

"Dr. Levi," Nanaba calls, relief evident in her eyes. She should be used to being harassed by worried friends and relatives, he thinks, but he walks over anyway.

"Miss Ral's friends would like to know how she is."

"She hasn't woken up yet, but her heartbeat is stable and her—" He turns to face the group of people and freezes.

It's ridiculous, but looking at the four college students (the bulging backpacks are a dead giveaway), he gets the most random notion that he knows them, knows that the tall blond one with the scruffy goatee likes his coffee with heaps of sugar and that the Hispanic-looking one with the cowlick hates spiders. He shakes his head to dispel the absurd idea.

"Is she going to be okay, doctor?" asks the girl who looks a lot like Miss Ral—she has the same facial shape and eye color and her hair is only a slightly different shade; perhaps they are sisters.

Levi hates questions like these. He is blunt and honest, he will never lie, but he is not cruel; he does not want to hurt people with his answers. "There isn't any reason she shouldn't be," he finally says.

"Please, doctor," says the bespectacled girl with white-blond hair. "Petra _has _to be okay. She's always been a little out of it… we shouldn't have let her walk alone at night." Her eyes start to mist up behind her glasses.

_Out of it?_ That can't be right, he thinks, even as he recalls the delicate girl from his dreams. Petra's never _out of it_, she's—

And then he remembers that he actually knows nothing about her, and he stops his mind from wandering any further. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asks.

"Play music," says the goateed young man. He swallows when Levi turns to look (unfortunately up) at him. "Petra loves music. Anything relaxing—classical, or ridiculous girly pop, or anything light or relaxing or cheery. She loves that stuff."

A simple detail, a simple request, but it disconcerts Levi for the rest of the day, even as he turns on the classical radio by her bed later that afternoon and lets quiet strands of Mozart play in her ear. He can't shake the feeling that it's something he's never known before but should have, and he doesn't know why it bothers him so much that he didn't.

* * *

"Why are you here, doctor?"

Levi shoots her a sidelong glance; he is sitting next to her under the shade of a tall oak tree. She is still wearing her gauzy blue dress and he still has his lab coat on. Sitting on the ground is disgusting, especially in his white coat, but he supposes dirt stains are not really an issue in dreams, so he stays there.

"What do you mean?"

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ears. "Are you in a coma, too?"

He snorts. "No. I told you, I'm the doctor in charge of your checkups. How could I be in a coma and work at the same time?"

She looks puzzled. "But you're here."

"I'm dreaming," he explains. "You're in my dreams."

She falls silent for a moment, fingers poking at the fabric of her dress. The landscape is changing; the tree they sit under is just one of many that have popped up since the last time Levi was here. He still recognizes the curve of the plains from the first two dreams under all the arboreal additions though.

"I don't think this is a dream," she announces suddenly.

"So you think you're actually communicating with me while I'm asleep, is that right?" Levi can't quite keep the skepticism out of his voice.

She smiles, though the expression is too sad to be called that. "I _know_ I'm here."

She sounds so certain. "How can you be sure?"

She lets out a wispy sigh. "I just… I _have_ to be here." She pauses and scrapes her fingers down the tree behind her, little bits of bark peeling away under her nails. Levi tries his best not to reach out and forcefully stop her; he can't stand dirty nails. "I can't _not_ be here, because…"

"Because what?" he prompts when she trails off again.

She turns to him then, and her smile is more genuine this time. "I've never enjoyed simple things like this before: nature, the sun in my eyes, the wind in my hair—I've always been busy with the reality of the world: hanging out with friends, getting good grades so I can get into a good college, then working on my premedical degree, studying and partying on the weekends… stuff like that. I've never actually just sat still and _enjoyed_ life before, and now, sitting here…" She flicks at the bark under her nails. "This is the most alive I've felt in nineteen years."

Something lurches violently in the pit of Levi's stomach at her words. He gives a start, turns to look at her—

—and wakes up.

* * *

When he checks in the next day and starts making his rounds, he finds a man sitting in a chair by Petra Ral's hospital bed and holding her hand. This must be her father.

"Doctor," the man says, standing up and reaching out a hand to shake. Levi grasps it and shakes as quickly as he can, then lets go. He doesn't know if working in a hospital has helped or worsened his OCD about germs.

"I'm Petra's father," he says, and Levi has to bite back a _clearly_. "I live across the country and booked the first plane I could to get here. How… how is she, doctor?"

"Physically, she is fine," Levi says, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. "I'm sure another doctor has already filled you in on the details of the accident, Mr. …" He wonders if he should risk pronouncing the name; he's not sure if it's like "Al" or "all" or even "ale," and he's actually offended people before with careless pronunciation.

"Forgive me for not introducing myself. I'm Edward Ral." The man's smile is like his daughter's, faint and tinged with a distinct sadness.

"Dr. Levi," Levi says, and the same childish part of him that insisted everyone call him by his last name years ago hopes the man doesn't ask for his given one.

Mr. Ral doesn't; instead, he looks at Levi, his eyes widening. "Dr. Levi! My daughter's mentioned you to me before."

That's not what he expected to hear at all. "Pardon?"

"She's studying for a premedical degree in college, you know; she wants to go to medical school and get an M.D. and be an ER physician like you. She said you were in the papers last year; you and a team here helped save the life of the dean of the medical school at her university… Erwin Smith, I think."

Mr. Ral looks at Levi like he expects a reaction, but when he doesn't get one, he continues.

"She said you went to the same college she goes to, got one of the highest scores on your MCAT test she's ever heard of, and graduated from the medical school she wants to go to. She really looks up to you, doctor; you'll take care of her, won't you?" His voice is pleading.

Levi just looks at him. A detached part of his brain notes that his subconscious was right; she _is_ a premed student, and another part is telling him to say something and stop standing there like an idiot, but he mostly just feels overwhelmed with the sudden, certain sense that this is all very familiar and very _wrong_, and in the end all he can manage is, "I'll try."

* * *

"So you're studying to become a doctor, huh?"

He's gotten used to seeing her whenever he sleeps; this time the plains have completely disappeared, covered in shrubs and trees that are growing far too tall to be normal. She leans against one, fingers playing with the weeds growing around the roots.

"Yeah. I want to get a premedical degree and go to Harvard Medical School if they'll accept me," she says. "Or just any medical school that will accept me, really. I want to be an ER physician."

"Don't."

She frowns. "Don't… be an ER physician? But _you're _one, aren't you?"

So she doesn't know who he is, despite having praised him to her father. Levi doesn't know why that makes him feel relieved.

"Don't get a premed degree. Major in physiology, biology, whatever. Something that gives you other options if you ever decide you don't want to go to medical school in the end."

She sits up, a new spark in her eyes. "No, I definitely want to become a doctor. I want to be an ER doctor like you. I want to help save lives." She slumps again, a bitter expression crossing her face. "Though that's probably not possible now, huh?"

"Don't say that," he says quickly. "Your full recovery is entirely feasible."

Her lips quirk, though her eyes are flat again. "I guess."

Levi's not sure why he says it—he's definitely not one to initiate conversations or offer personal information freely—but he finds himself adding, "Being an ER doctor isn't that great; it's not just saving lives."

She blinks. "What? Why?" She peers at him more closely. "Why did _you_ decide to become one then?"

He sighs, rests his hands on his knees. "I was a stupid little shit as a kid, got into a lot of trouble, hurt a lot of people. I guess I was smart, but I never worked hard. I don't think my dad ever expected me to go to college." He stops talking then, because he doesn't want to think about his father.

"Go on," Petra says. Her eyes are bright again, bright and inquisitive.

"Well, my mother never gave up hope and in the summer before my junior year of high school, she dragged me around to all these different colleges, looking at the campuses and meeting with deans and professors and whatnot. There was this one guy I met who really left an impression on me. I don't even remember exactly what he said—probably the typical crap about doing my best and becoming an upstanding young member of society who can help the world or whatever—but whatever it was, it worked. He was the dean of the medical school at that college, which I enrolled in a few years later. Because of him, I decided I wanted to be a doctor."

She nods. "Sounds like the dean of the medical school at my college. He's very inspiring."

_Yes, Erwin Smith is very inspiring,_ Levi thinks. "So I started working hard, I got into college and graduated with a premed degree, then went to medical school and got an M.D., made my mom proud"—_and would have proved my dad wrong if he'd been alive to see it_—"did my residency, and now I've been an ER physician for a couple of years and it feels like all I've done is prolong the lives of people who die in the end anyway."

Petra is quiet. Her fingers clench and unclench in her lap, ripping weeds to little pieces. "You haven't saved anyone?"

He snorts. "Of course I have. But it feels like for every relative there is thanking me, there's another one sobbing as someone they love gets sent to the morgue. Maybe it's because people tend to remember bad things more clearly, but it feels like I've seen more people die than live, no matter what I do, no matter what we all do, and there's nothing I can do to change that. I work late into the night, an early morning shift, and basically only get a few hours to myself every day—which I use to sleep and eat. I'm unmarried, my only friend is probably this crazy neurosurgeon who works with me, and this isn't even a huge hospital. Imagine all the people who get hurt or sick and die in the big cities. It's fucking depressing."

He's never said this to anyone before—he doesn't want his mother to worry about him, and Hanji Zoe enjoys her work far too much to feel the same way—so it feels cathartic in a way, letting out his feelings about the matter in one big rush of words. And Petra won't judge him: Petra Ral, a figment of his imagination, his mind's image of the pale girl lying in the ER with a worried father by her side.

She is still, her fingers still, her body still as she doesn't say anything for a long time. When she speaks again, her voice is resigned. "Do you think I'll die, too?"

This question again. Levi wishes he had a definite answer—or maybe he doesn't want to know. "It's hard to say," he admits. If her brain were perfectly fine, she should have woken up by now.

She sighs a little. "Has anyone been to see me?"

"Your father is by your side right now. A few friends visited but weren't allowed in—oh, and a Mr. Bossard, I think his name was."

"Auruo," she whispers, and the way his name falls from her lips stirs something in Levi. The name sounds so familiar, like the name of something beloved from childhood that he can no longer recall, and if he could just place it…

"I hope they're not too worried."

Petra's words jolt him back to the conversation. "You're in a fucking coma," he says, not quite disguising the harsh tone in his voice. "What do you expect?"

He didn't intend his words to come out so roughly, but there they are, out in the open. She doesn't look hurt though. She tilts her head to the side as if gathering her thoughts before speaking.

"I've always worried my friends because I'm not too… grounded in reality, I guess? I don't know… I mean, I know I'm pretty smart, I work hard at everything I do, I have a clear goal in life, but it's like… like I've lived my entire life in a dream or something." She shakes her head. "I'm not explaining it very well, am I? It's just… people have told me that it's like I know what I have to do, and I plan it out and do it, and do it well, but I'm not as invested in it as normal people would be. It just feels like there's always been something missing in my life, and because of that I act all spacey sometimes.

"I feel really bad for my friends since they can tell I'm always a bit out of it, and I feel really bad for Auruo because he's liked me since we were kids and I can't give him what he wants. I went on a date with him once, but it didn't feel right, and… I don't know. I'm weird." She laughs a little self-deprecatingly. "I feel like such a burden to them sometimes… maybe it would be best if I just stayed like this."

"Don't say that," Levi snaps. He doesn't know why her words get him so riled up, but they do. "Don't you fucking _dare_ say that. You didn't see your friends' faces, or Auruo's, or your father's. You didn't see the faces of people whose loved ones tried to commit suicide—there've been people rushed to the hospital for trying and failing to kill themselves before, and I've worked on them, and you should have _seen_ their friends' faces, their family's faces. So don't you _fucking dare say that_."

Petra looks startled, like a deer caught in headlights. She stares at him for a long moment, like she's just seeing him for the first time. Then she says quietly, "I don't feel like that right now though. Not… not with you here."

Levi just stares back at her, and for a moment he feels an overwhelming certainty that he _knows_ her, he _knows_ this girl, and if only he could just place when, and where, and how—

—but then he wakes up.

* * *

Dr. Zoe is doing her own checkups on the patients, looking at all the machines and monitors and tubes, making notes on a small pad. Levi's already done his rounds and makes his way back to the bed in the corner where Petra Ral and her father are asleep; Mr. Ral stayed the night in the hospital. Petra's friends have just left from visiting again, this time allowed in due to Mr. Ral's presence.

"How is she?" he asks the neurosurgeon.

Zoe's face is somber. "Her systems are all functioning properly, but she should be awake by now. It's troublesome."

Later, when Zoe has left, Levi looks down at Petra's motionless body, her skin as pale as the sheets, her copper hair dull under the fluorescent lights, and recalls the vivid, bright girl with the soft voice from his dreams. He shakes his head and reminds himself that they're just that, dreams, but something tugs at his heart anyway.

"Petra," he whispers. "Petra, wake up."

* * *

"I feel like I used to know you, somehow," she says.

It was only a matter of time before she discovered his identity, he supposes. It's foolish of him, but he doesn't want her to know that the doctor she read about in the papers and admired is the same doctor who is currently failing to do anything about her situation.

"Your father said you mentioned me before," he begins, but she shakes her head.

"No, that's not what I mean. I think…" She huffs. "Oh, I don't know. It's silly. I'm just being silly."

"I don't think you're silly." No, silly is the last word he would use to describe this girl, his mind's version of the comatose one lying in a bed in the ER.

"Do you think…" she starts, then bites her lip. "Do you think we used to know each other... in a different life?"

The words are heavy; they sink into Levi's mind slowly, seeping into his thoughts until he can't be sure exactly what they mean anymore. _Different life?_ He's a doctor, trained in the sciences; he never thinks about things like _a different life_. Even if he gets the oddest sense of déjà vu when he's around this girl, he can't bring himself to believe in things like _a different life_.

"I don't believe in that shit," he finally says. _And I'm dreaming all this anyway,_ he adds in his head, but somehow can't bring himself to say out loud, not to her, his dream-girl with the sunset hair and golden eyes and too-sad smile.

Her expression is wistful when she looks at him. "Even if you don't believe it doesn't mean it's not true."

She reaches for his hand, and he lets her take it. They sit like that, under the shade of a tall tree, the wind in their hair and sunlight drifting through the branches, until he wakes up.

* * *

"Petra Ral's getting worse," Zoe says the moment he steps into the ER that day.

He hasn't even had his morning coffee yet; he thinks his eye twitches at the volume of her voice. "What?"

"Oh, and we discharged Feulner; he can walk normally now and he's itching to get back to work."

"What did you say about Petra Ral?"

Zoe presses her lips into a grim line. "I don't think her brain took the damage very well; it was doing okay after the surgery but it must have been too much pressure for it to keep her bodily faculties running after a while. Her brain's starting to shut down."

Levi stares at her, then at Petra, hooked up to all the machines, her skin still ashen and gray, and feels his nerves starting to fray. "I see," is all he says. "What's her chance of a full recovery now?"

"Judging from this?" Zoe nods at the monitors and then at the pad of paper in her hands. "If it continues like this, I'd say less than fifteen percent."

Levi tells himself he isn't affected; she'd only be one patient of many who didn't make it, but he sees her smile, burned into his eyelids, hears her voice, still ringing in his ears, and suddenly finds himself wanting to punch something.

* * *

"I'm leaving soon," she tells him.

"No," he says, but the word feels hollow; he can still see the charts tacked to the edge of her hospital bed, the heart rate monitor beeping by her side, Zoe's scribbled notes and bleak proposition. She isn't going to make it.

Funny, he thinks, how the human body can be so random. He's seen other patients like her before: stable conditions that suddenly deteriorate rapidly, the data's line on the screen a steep, declining curve. And once again, there's nothing he can do about it.

She grasps his hand and presses it to her chest, and he can feel the heartbeat there, weak and uneven, though she appears bright and healthy before his eyes. "Thank you for looking out for me these past few days, doctor," she says. "I know you're just doing your job, but… thank you."

"No," he says fiercely, surprising himself at how strongly he feels about the matter. "Every patient is important, and…"

_You're different,_ he wants to say, but he can't explain how, or why. It's not that she's the only patient he's ever seen in his dreams. She's just… different.

And now she's going to leave.

"… and I'm the only one you dream about, right?" she says, but she's smiling again, cheerful despite—or perhaps because of—her resignation. "No, you're… you're different too. And I don't care if you don't believe it; I used to know you. I'm positive of it."

"Okay," he says, because he has nothing else to say.

The dream world is darker now, in sync with her health, he thinks. The sun is a faint glow on the horizon, and there is no breeze. The tall branches cast dark shadows over everything, but even in the dim light, Petra is bright, like a beacon.

She's still holding his hand to her chest, and she cradles it gently, entwining her fingers with his. "I feel like there's something I have to do," she says. "Something I have to do before I leave. I never got a chance to before—wasn't brave enough to—but this might be my last chance, my only chance—"

"Do it," he says.

She stares up at him for a heartbeat, her amber eyes flecked with gold, and leans forward; her hands cup the sides of his face and her mouth finds his.

It's hard to believe this is the same girl lying in a coma on a hospital bed outside his dreams when she feels so real, so warm, so _alive_, from the softness of her lips to the warmth of her breath to the little gasping noise she makes in the back of her throat when his tongue parts her lips.

Part of him is thinking this is sad; she's the first girl he's kissed in years and of course he's only dreaming it; part of him is thinking she's nineteen and barely legal and he shouldn't be doing this, even if she started it; but mostly he's just struck by how _right_ this feels, like he's been waiting his whole life, possibly longer, to do this, and he doesn't want to let her go.

There is wetness on his cheeks; she's crying, muffled little hiccupping noises in the back of her throat. "I don't want to die," she says, and he doesn't know what to say to that, doesn't have a good enough response, so he only kisses her again, drinking in her smell, her taste, the feel of her skin against his. "Don't cry, Petra," he whispers.

She jerks away from him like she's been burned; her eyes widen and her grip on him falters. "Levi!" she gasps.

The way her lips round out the syllables of his name awakens something deep within him; it feels like the ground has fallen out from under his feet. He stares at her, something reeling deep in his brain, tidal waves of long-forgotten memories crashing around those two syllables: memories of endless nights and soaring speeds and tireless training and moments of peace—he reaches for her, but she's backing away now, out of his reach, but no, she's not backing away, she's _fading_, but she's still smiling and whispering his name through her tears, and dammit, she's so close, just a little farther, he can almost touch her hand—

He wakes up.

* * *

"She died at 6:53 this morning; that's when the heart rate monitor stopped. Her brain just shut down; I guess it never recovered."

Her father is weeping by her side; someone is calling her friends; he should be preparing the bed for the next patient right away (the ER is always busy), but all Levi can do is stare at the flatlined heart rate monitor, _6:53 AM_, he thinks, he can still feel her lips on his, but no, she's not real, never was, it was all a dream, they were all just dreams, and he tells himself this over and over but that does not erase the ache in his heart.

* * *

_A/N: Idk where this came from. I'm writing something else for Rivetra Week Day 7: Reincarnation, but I guess this could count for that too? I know nothing about injuries or anatomy or medical practices btw, so I did a bit of research, but I really don't know how accurate anything is. I also know nothing about medical school. Terribly sorry if you are a medical student or doctor or something and cringing at all the factual errors; I tried, I really did. Feel free to point out mistakes. And yes, Levi is an ER doctor with many patients, but this would end up being way too detailed if I mentioned too much about the other patients, so I just left the focus on Petra. Because this is a Rivetra fic. Speaking of which, sorry if the progression was too sudden. I tried. /dies_

_I was going to have the whole special ops squad be in a car accident, with everyone but Petra dying, but then I decided not to. Because poor special ops squad has suffered enough._

_Please leave a review if you didn't hate it? :)_


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